In the middle of NBC's new sitcom, "My Name Is Earl," when you've recovered from some of the fall's best and biggest laughs and are beginning to draw a bead on how good the show really is -- how star Jason Lee is absolutely perfect, how it echoes "Raising Arizona," a great American comedic film, and how the show already has an assured rhythm to it -- you may begin to get a sense of melancholy.

Because, well, take a step back and look at the schedule. This could be hopeless. NBC really isn't in the sitcom game, people. And it hasn't been for a while, after having the bulk of its schedule from the '80s to the mid-'90s littered with half-hour comedies.

Latest entertainment videos

'Teen Mom' Star Jenelle Evans Is Married — See Her Wedding Pics!Wochit

Ryan Seacrest Weighs In on Kylie Jenner Pregnancy RumorsWochit

Idina Menzel Marries Aaron LohrWochit

Chrissy Teigen Says This Is the Reason She Will Never Divorce John LegendWochit

Priyanka Chopra speaks out about activism and feminismMic

Ava DuVernay On 'Teach Us All' And U.S. Public Education SystemNowThisPolitics

Veterans Taking a Knee For Kaepernick and NFL PlayersNowThisPolitics

7 highest-grossing comic book filmsWibbitz

Rapper B.o.B. Wants To Use Crowdfunding To Prove That The Earth Is FlatWochit

And, not to put too fine a point on the mess NBC is in, but -- "Joey" and "Will & Grace" air Thursdays. You might make a pretty good argument that there are no comedies on Thursdays either.

"My Name Is Earl," the fall's funniest sitcom, airs Tuesday and is followed by the surprisingly scrappy, loyal-to-the-original and barely-seen "The Office." That's a series that aired all of six episodes last year -- hardly a known quantity to viewers. Reality schlock "The Biggest Loser" leads into these comedies, relentless downer "Law & Order: SVU" leads out.

Oh, and Tuesday from 9 to 10 p.m. is one of the biggest battlefields on network television. Recipe for failure? This might as well be a post mortem, not a review.

It's more than a little depressing that NBC has stuck these series out on an island. The network had the guts and vision both to make "My Name Is Earl" and keep "The Office." The former features a lovable loser and, though America does love those types, he might be more of a loser than people are used to, and there are no laugh tracks in "Earl" to help out Pavlovian audiences. The latter series deftly conveys the painful embarrassment comedy so artfully mastered in the British version and also lacks a laugh track -- not to mention being filled with awkward silences and taking as its subject matter a grindingly boring workplace.

But if you're going to take risks, why not give them a fighting chance to pay off? The best that can be said about the scheduling of "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office" is that the network will have lower expectations and thus be less panicked when they tank.

Thinking positively, here's hoping these shows find an audience fast. In a season when the sitcom is back, "My Name Is Earl" leads the pack. Lee ("Almost Famous," "The Incredibles") seems so fully realized as slacker Earl Hickey that it's almost scary. Earl is a scruffy, beer-in-the-morning kind of guy with little ambition in life but mischief and petty thievery. He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer and gets himself married to a woman six months pregnant. Things get worse after that. But Earl rolls with it, either channeling some lazy strain of Zen or perhaps thinking it's all too much trouble to undo.

Tapping into the vein of "Raising Arizona" and clearly enjoying the premise that creator Greg Garcia has laid out for him, Lee is convivial as no-class trash whose life of malice-free meanness and unaccountability suddenly changes when he wins the lottery ($100,000 -- enough to change a life, but not fix it) then promptly gets hit by a car.

Watching Carson Daly while drugged up in the hospital, Earl comes to understand the concept of karma, though he thinks Daly invented it (one of many inspired ideas from Garcia in this pilot). Determined to do good things for others so that those good things will be revisited upon him, Earl makes a list. A long list. Of all the bad things he's done in his past. And he sets out to right them.

Yes, things go sideways.

Garcia has built a series with big, ridiculous laughs. Side characters are rich and layered within the first episode and he has promised not to get roped into a series of episodes where Earl effortlessly whittles down his list. Earl will fail, Garcia said, and sometimes bad things he does will have to be added to the list. What we've got here, essentially, is a dim-bulb, belatedly big-hearted Sisyphus.

The problem will be finding Earl on the island NBC has dumped him on. But if you care about good sitcoms, this is a hunt worth making and a TiVo "season pass" worth adding.

Once there, since all the other networks are showing dramas and you just missed the first half of them, stay for "The Office," a comedy that, taken in context with "Earl," really makes you believe that NBC is committed to the idea of returning to comedy powerhouse status. (Better to put these series on Thursday night, where people still remember NBC being a destination channel. "Joey" is going nowhere creatively and "Will & Grace" is already played out. A forward-looking rebuild should have started here.)

For all intents and purposes "The Office" is like a new series, but now it has the added benefit of former "Daily Show" funnyman Steve Carrell coming off the summer movie hit, "The 40 Year-Old Virgin."

Whereas in last year's shortened season it was impossible not to compare him -- unfavorably -- to Ricky Gervais, whose deftly nuanced performance in the original could never be equaled, now Carrell has the benefit of distance and his own rising stardom.

If it drives people to "The Office," all the better. Because, judging it on its own, fully removed from the British version, you have to respect the daring approach of the series: to make mind-numbingly boring work situations and a clueless, oafish, inefficient boss seem hilarious.

Never mind that so many Americans might be excused for thinking "The Office" is a documentary. Or that the pacing and camera work are all purposefully off what viewers are accustomed to. What's truly brave is the comedy itself, which borrows a little bit of Dilbert and a whole lot of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as it celebrates awkward interpersonal relationships with no hint of escape.

Carrell is cringe-worthy as Michael Scott, manager of a paper products office in Scranton, Pa. He thinks he's funny -- everybody else loathes his lameness. But he's the boss and it's a joyless job, so you go along to get along, startled daily by Michael's inability to lead, his lack of political correctness and general cluelessness about people and their feelings.

All of this is being caught on camera by a documentary film crew -- that intrusive lens only makes things more awkward.

Receptionist Pam (Jenna Fischer) and salesman Jim (John Krasinski) are still in denial about their feelings, and delusionally self-important Dwight (Rainn Wilson) remains as annoyingly meddlesome and prone to sucking up as ever.

Good times!

These comedies won't be for everybody, but each adds immeasurably to a formerly weak network-wide lineup of sitcoms. The only hard part now is overcoming all the obstacles to enjoying them that NBC has put up in front of you.

Latest from the SFGATE homepage:

Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.